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Internet's biggest annoyance: Cookie laws should target browsers, not websites

(nednex.com)
582 points SweetSoftPillow | 2 comments | 22 Oct 25 12:12 UTC | HN request time: 0.589s | source
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michaelmauderer ◴[22 Oct 25 12:36 UTC] No.45668112[source]▶
The problem here is not the law, but malicious compliance by websites that don't want to give up tracking.

"Spend Five Minutes in a Menu of Legalese" is not the intended alternative to "Accept All". "Decline All" is! And this is starting to be enforced through the courts, so you're increasingly seeing the "Decline All" option right away. As it should be. https://www.techspot.com/news/108043-german-court-takes-stan...

Of course, also respecting a Do-Not-Track header and avoiding the cookie banner entirely while not tracking the user, would be even better.

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crazygringo ◴[22 Oct 25 12:52 UTC] No.45668318[source]▶
No, the problem is 100% the law, because it was written in a way that allows this type of malicious compliance.

Laws need to be written well to achieve good outcomes. If the law allows for malicious compliance, it is a badly written law.

The sites are just trying to maximize profit, as anyone could predict. So write better laws.

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raverbashing ◴[22 Oct 25 13:08 UTC] No.45668540[source]▶
I agree with you

But we see how some companies cough cough Apple cough throw massive hissy fits and tries to find the most minuscule opening on the law

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carlhjerpe ◴[22 Oct 25 13:12 UTC] No.45668597[source]▶
They're legally bound to what's best for their shareholders, that includes being absolute weasel scum and abuse the law to maximize profits. At least that seems to be how it's interpreted by every big public company.
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1. skrebbel ◴[22 Oct 25 13:29 UTC] No.45668856[source]▶
This "big companies have to screw everybody over! It's their fiduciary duty!" meme really has to stop. It's a lie, don't propagate it.
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2. piltdownman ◴[22 Oct 25 14:32 UTC] No.45669736[source]▶
You're missing the subtlety here. There is no legal precedent requiring corporate fiduciary duty to focus solely on shareholders. In practice, however, it's a reference to the Realpolitik of being ousted by a Board, enabled to do so by arguing a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.

If it wasn't, the ghoulish masquerade of Corporate Social Responsibility wouldn't be a thing - it in itself a response to Milton Friedman's 1970 article “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” which argued that corporate executives are agents of shareholders and should focus solely on maximizing returns, not social responsibility.